BRUSSELS—Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and skeptical European leaders negotiated past a self-imposed deadline into the early hours of Monday, with talks stuck on how Greece would guarantee austerity measures in exchange for a rescue package to prevent its banks from collapsing.
If the talks don’t succeed, some of Greece’s eurozone partners warned, the country could be temporarily forced out of the euro, the European single currency that Greece has been a part of since 2002. No country has ever left the joint currency, which launched in 1999, and there is no mechanism in place for one to do so.
It wasn’t entirely clear what a temporary exit would entail, but the threat put intense pressure on Tsipras to swallow politically unpalatable austerity measures, as his people overwhelmingly want to stay in the eurozone.
